Nick Cohen asks why pedestrians are overlooked when our towns and cities are built ("I love to walk, but why is Britain such a dangerous place for walkers?", First Person). Part of the answer is that governments have predicted ever-increasing traffic volumes that authorities scrabble to meet. To do this, pedestrian crossings are made scarce and slow. And the easier it is to drive quickly from A to B, the more we want to drive and the harder it is for people to cross roads.

The engineers largely responsible for our roads are given no training in holistic design. It is far more about mathematical traffic models and following often antiquated highway design guidelines. It's perhaps no coincidence that the UK's best known creative thinker in road design is not an engineer, but an architect, Ben Hamilton-Baillie.

The cost to human life of the conventional approach has been catastrophic. On roads, we see "slaughter that would be shocking, and even unacceptable if it occurred in war" (to quote Martin Gilbert's Descent into Barbarism). And our laws are too forgiving of those who kill by car.

Strict driver liability law as exists in most of Europe, where the person operating a dangerous vehicle must take responsibility, would make the road environment less hostile. As with buildings, highways schemes could be subject to a planning process based in part on aesthetics and the impact on the street scene.

Lucy Taussig

Bournemouth

I live beside a rural B road with a blind bend, no pavement and a 30mph limit that most ignore. Almost opposite the bottom of our drive is the start of a public footpath, so when I walk the dogs we have to proceed a few metres along the roadside. Drivers pull out to avoid us, but some sound their horn, offended that they have had to slow down and make way, forgetting that if walkers, riders and carts hadn't followed this route for centuries beforehand, the B4060 wouldn't exist for them to enjoy.

Rob Harris

Stinchcombe

Gloucestershire

I expect that it will have come as a surprise to the Ramblers and to many of my professional colleagues that "Britain does not have a 'walkers lobby'". Formerly the Ramblers' Association, the organisation will celebrate 80 years of campaigning, not just for countryside walks, on 1 January 2015.

Sue Rumfitt

Editor, Waymark

The Institute of Public Rights of Way and Access Management

Penrith

I have never understood why compulsory speed awareness classes are not a vital part of the driving test. I would also advocate that our schools teach the effects of the laws of momentum and kinetic energy on human flesh and bone. Hit a pedestrian at 35mph and, ceteris paribus, five out of 10 will be killed. At 30mph, two out of 10 will die, not to mention the injuries. I am a driver, but I am gobsmacked when some of my fellow motorists remark that speed limits and enforcement produce even more fatalities and injuries because of driver impatience and frustration.

On that basis, we should get rid of anything that holds up the speeding driver: zebra crossings, speed cameras, traffic humps, traffic lights and tractors. Just imagine the ensuing anarchy and carnage if drivers could pick their own maximum speed with impunity. There are many causes of accidents but it is impact speed that determines the extent of victims' injuries and whether they live or die. We can all be blasé about speeding until one of our own is hit by a driver who couldn't pull up in time because of their illegal or inappropriate speed.

Stephen McBride

Largs

Ayrshire

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